


Crashing

by lady_wordsmith



Series: Memories (Bucky/Reader) [13]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky blames himself, Cliffhangers, Everything Hurts, F/M, Guilt, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Ouch, Past Relationship(s), Reader-Insert, Romance, The Author Regrets Everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 21:43:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8261351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_wordsmith/pseuds/lady_wordsmith
Summary: Bucky can talk all he wants about killing and maiming whoever made you forget him and changed your memories, but at the end of the day, he knows that blame lays chiefly at his own feet.As Bucky torments himself, Sam and Steve race to Boston, fearful of what Bucky might do.Unaware of the pain and hurt you're connected to, you contemplate an important memento.





	

_“It’s either this, or we die, isn’t it?”_

That keeps ringing in Bucky’s head as he walks the streets of Boston, aimless, uncertain, stricken with the dueling emotions of anger and sorrow, rage and heartbreak. _I’m sorry, doll,_ he thinks. _I’m so sorry._

He tries to breathe, but the air isn’t entering his lungs, and he feels like there’s a hand on his throat, squeezing and suffocating him.

_“It’s either this, or we die, isn’t it?”_

He tells himself he’ll kill them all for what happened to you. Crush their skulls, snap their necks, pull out spines if that’s what needs doing. _It’s all my fault, what happened to you, isn’t it, doll? If I had just let you go right away, or even later, before I… you would be okay now. But I was too selfish, and now… Now I’m paying the price._

Bucky could handle you moving on. He could handle you refusing to see him. He _cannot_ handle you forgetting, _really_ forgetting. Trying to forget, yes, that he could understand, accept, even welcome in time if that was what you truly wanted to do.

But someone, _something_ , had ripped it all from you. He could see nothing in your eyes, no recognition, no trace of knowing. Not even a flicker of unbidden knowledge. He was nothing to you. Less than nothing, a complete stranger. He could have handled nothing, so long as you acknowledged knowing him. But to be a stranger, after everything?

_You’re biting your lip as you look at him. “It’s either this, or we die, isn’t it?”_

He thinks of that machine HYDRA wiped him with. The idea that they could have used it on you makes bile rise in his throat. _You loved me and paid for it, and I’m paying now. I thought death would be bad but this… God, I’m so sorry, doll!_

But it doesn’t make sense to him, either. Could they really have just wiped you and dropped you back into your life? But they had kidnapped you, held you prisoner, and then hunted you down when Bucky had escaped with you. If you were so important, they would have kept you. If not, they would have just killed you, cut off the loose end.

The group, Bucky thinks, the one Steve and Sam are looking after, the one your cousin is in. Could they have something to do with it? That makes no sense, either. Sam says he thinks they’re fighting HYDRA. But he only _thinks_ that, Bucky realizes. They could be a HYDRA splinter group, or not even involved at all, something else entirely that just happened to get caught in somebody’s crosshairs.

His head throbs. He can’t think of all these things, all these possibilities that are trying to assault his thoughts. He can only think of you.

_“You came for me once, right? Before everything?” Your hand rising to caress his cheek._

He didn’t remember those words before. But it’s the same conversation, the same time you asked if it was that or you died. The only difference was you were crying when you asked him that question about coming for you, or you were trying not to cry. _Don’t cry, doll, I promise you’ll be okay… Some protector I am, right? Fuck!_

Bucky tries to calm himself, steady his breathing. He spies a park bench nearby, sits, puts his head in his hands and tries to focus on the memory and not his breaking heart.

He had both found and lost you in one fell swoop. Whatever he had chosen to do back then, he kept you alive, and came for you again, but there was nothing left of him in your memory, was there?

_“I do trust you, James… Bucky. You’re the only one I **can** trust.”_

_And look where your trust had gotten you_ , he thinks bitterly. He was just as responsible for your memories being gone as whoever had done it. He had basically thrown you to the wolves, and for what? He had returned to being The Asset, the Winter Soldier, HYDRA’s puppet. You had returned to your life, safe but only superficially, on the surface. They could have returned for you and you would never have known why. You could have been attacked, could still be attacked, and that would be his fault, another thing he would be responsible for.

He had to make it right somehow. Try to make it right, anyway, if he didn’t just screw it up more.

Suddenly, there’s a hand on his shoulder. His first instinct is to attack, but he suppresses it, looks up to see who it is behind him.

* * *

It takes six hours to get Boston, some kind of delay with the train. Steve tries not to anxious as Sam makes a call.

“Deron, hey. Listen, my buddy and I are coming down a little early, looks like that business in Boston got moved up-“

Steve lets Sam’s call fade into background noise as he tries to think about what Bucky had told him. Bucky was insistent you had forgotten him, no longer remembered anything. Steve didn’t know how or why, and he cursed Bucky for not elaborating before dropping the call.

All the same, he worried for his friend, and by extension, you. Steve was confident Bucky would never hurt you, but he worried about Bucky hurting himself. Bucky had enough emotions attached to his own memory loss, and being confronted with the idea someone might have done the same to you was likely to push Bucky over the edge.

Sighing, Steve used his phone to check the GPS on Bucky’s own phone. Bucky was still in Boston, thankfully. If they got there in time, he might be persuaded to come back to New York, but Steve knew it was a long shot. Bucky had planned to look for you to the exclusion of everything else. Steve wasn’t stupid; he knew his friend and Bucky had always had something of a one-track mind. When Bucky got an idea in his head, he focused on it to the exclusion of almost everything else, following his own instincts to the conclusion. This normally wasn’t a bad thing, but Steve knows encountering you so early on, before he had really started looking, would throw Bucky off-balance and potentially make him reckless.

This whole thing was a bout of horrible luck, and Steve had said as much to Sam.

After Steve had calmed down from the phone call, he told Sam everything. “Bucky’s probably going to try to kill you,” he had said, trying for humor he didn’t feel.

“Why? The apartment hunt go bad? Which one was it, the girl who kept trying to flirt over email or the guy with all the-“

“The psychology student.” Steve interrupted. “It was her.”

Sam’s eyes went wide. “Fuck,” he muttered. “He told me it would be. I thought he was being paranoid.”

Silence for a long moment.

“What happened?” Sam finally ventured to ask. “I assume nothing good, or he wouldn’t be trying to kill me.”

“He said she didn’t remember him at all.”

Sam sighed. “Alright, I’ll call Deron, let him know we’re coming down early.” He looked at Steve, the question in his eyes. “We _are_ going to Boston now, right?”

Steve nodded. “He hung up on me, probably took off.”

Sam had only sighed and shook his head, and now here the two of them were, almost to Boston after the ridiculous train delay.

Steve checks the GPS again. Bucky hasn’t moved for a while. Steve wonders if this is good, if Bucky has maybe decided to stay in one place so he can be found, or if something more sinister has happened. The thought makes his blood run cold. He wants to tell himself that Bucky would never, but the truth is, he doesn’t know anymore. Steve can’t even begin to imagine where Bucky’s head is.

* * *

You sigh as you rise up from your couch. Eyeing the blank copy of the lease, you sigh and grab it from your coffee table, heading to your printer-scanner-copier. The machine is old and you’re pretty sure it would have just been easier to have James sign the lease while he was there, but he seemed uncomfortable being there, though he hadn’t said anything about not wanting to move in.

He had seemed strange, but not psychotic, which you guessed was a point in his favor. He barely said anything to you at all, but he had also glared daggers at Kai, which you chalked up to stupid alpha male posturing.

He was confusing, you thought as you fired up your computer to scan the lease and email James a copy. You fired off a quick email saying hello and mentioning the copy of the lease, saying he could just sign it and send it back and you would email him again when it was alright for him to move in. You power down your computer and head for your bookshelf.

Your jewelry box sits in a place of honor on the top shelf of your bookshelf, and though you went to the bookshelf seeking a book to read, you find yourself opening the jewelry box and looking inside. You have a few random pieces of jewelry: some of your mother’s earrings, her wedding ring set (which you only kept because it was valuable), a pair of diamond earrings Lila and Hayden had gifted you for graduating high school, a bracelet you had been given by your sorority for surviving rush week, and of course, the piece you considered your collection’s crown jewel.

You pick it up and hold it in your hands. It was a shame the chain was broken, you thought. The necklace was a precious gift by Giamo, who bought the piece and gave it to you because he said you deserved the stars. You then wore it the rest of the time the two of you traveled Europe, but upon finding out you had been reported missing and had to return to the States to sort the whole mess out, Giamo had kissed you and told you that it was meant to happen you would find each other again.

Stupid romantic douchebag asshole.

At the time, throwing the necklace as he left you felt good. Later, you knew you were lucky that only the chain had broken when it made contact with the door. The stone could have been damaged, and you would have never gotten over that. The stone swirled bright glowing pink and dark blue together, shining like the night sky. Like the stars Giamo insisted you deserved.

Someday you would get the chain repaired, you think as you place the necklace back into the jewelry box. For now, the necklace sits in your jewelry box, waiting.

* * *

Bucky still hadn’t moved, and as Steve and Sam walked through Boston, getting closer and closer to the GPS location, Steve was filled with a sense of dread. Thankfully, the location wasn’t near any major waterways and was on a busy street, limiting the idea Bucky was there to do himself harm. He had no weapons, so he wasn’t likely to hurt someone else, either.

Sam urged Steve to call the phone, saying the GPS was only accurate to a few meters and that listening for a ringtone would increase their chances of success. As Steve dialed and redialed Bucky’s phone, he kept hoping his best friend would pick up, say that he was fine and was going back to New York to figure the whole mess out.

“Cap!” Steve heard Sam call. He looks over to where Sam is, leaning next to a park bench. Sam’s hand is raised.

In his hand is Bucky’s phone.

* * *

“You’ll probably want to leave the cell phone.”

Bucky digs the phone out of his pocket and leaves it on the bench.

“Yeah, probably.” He says, wiping at his face one last time and standing up.

“Come on, then, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m nice like that, on occasion. You coming?”

Bucky nods and follows.

**Author's Note:**

> Another update in less than a week, and another cliffhanger? Damn. I just want to get the torment of the way and focus on getting these two back together in some capacity, okay?
> 
> I promise to fully explain the reason for the memory loss and to let up on the angst, but it will take a bit.


End file.
